By Any Other Name
by Laurie Bunter
Summary: IchiRuki vignettes. Renji, Urahara, Inoue, Kon, Chad, Ukitake and Byakuya lend their POVs on the couple. Topics include MayDecember relationships, reincarnation, the erotics of looking, unspoken desires, how we name our lovers, innuendos, time, pride etc
1. Third Floor Window

_Author's Note: _

_A majority of the taking-off points are from dialogue and scenes in the manga, with spoilers for current chapters (286). Quoted dialogue (highlighted in italics throughout) either comes from the official Viz Shonen Jump translation or from fan translations available at Bleach Exile and Bleach Portal._

_The Anti-Inoue Brigade (if it exists) should enjoy this. Reader, you have been warned. No flaming please._

_Disclaimer: Bleach belongs to Kubo Tite and all the companies that make money from fans like me._

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**_1. Third Floor Window_**

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Even if he was a guy who read Shakespeare, Ichigo could not tolerate clichés.

So early on he decided that he would never say all those words that are deemed necessary in human language: those empty phrases that are used like grease to ease the creaking mechanisms of society.

He decided he would never say sorry. He would never say I love you. He would never accept thanks, even if he deserved it.

On the flip side of the coin, he would never blame someone for an innate weakness. He would never lie to get his way. He would never mask his true thoughts with sugarcoated politeness.

He was just so bored with what was obvious.

He made up his mind, that if he would fall for someone, those words and phrases would be superfluous to her too. She would not demand meaningless words from him. Actions alone would count.

One hungry look across an empty classroom would be enough.


	2. By Any Other Name

_**2. By Any Other Name**_

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Kurosaki-kun.

It's his surname, with some formality. There is so much distance encompassed within those polysyllables. It's more than a mouthful.

Perhaps on a subconscious level Orihime knew that she doesn't deserve to call him by any other name. Not like Rukia, who screams his name at the top of her lungs – in good times and bad – with the same sharp, ringing intimacy: Ichigo.

Rukia's always called him that.

Kurosaki-kun does the same: Rukia.

The intonation may change but the inflections of concern for the other – it is heard by all within earshot. There is no doubt that they are special to each other in ways that other people cannot comprehend.

_"__I will defeat you, and Ulquiorra, and Aizen! Then I will take Rukia, Chad, Ishida, Renji, and Inoue back with me!"_ he swore to Grimmjow as they battled and drew blood in the bowels of Hueco Mundo.

Even here, Orihime thought sadly, so far from the living world -- he still calls me Inoue.

She never felt more alone.


	3. December Thoughts

_**3. December Thoughts**_

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Rukia knew that she doesn't really love him.

The "she" was not herself: it was Orihime. The "him", well… there could only be one, after all.

Rukia wanted to tell the younger woman many things. Things like the fallibility of women's intuition, the dangers of idol worship, the problem with mistaking infatuation for first love. Concepts like male objectification: how one may find a guy's looks cute or funny and how one can waste a lot of time daydreaming and swooning. Over time one may learn to identify many trivial things about one's infatuation, like his natural citrus and spice scent. Unfortunately, these things never lead to fathoming the secrets of his mind or operating the machinery of his heart.

Rukia didn't want to give Aizen any credit, but the monster was right when he said adoration is the emotion furthest from true understanding.

Rukia wanted to tell Orihime so many things, about all common mistakes in judgment that young women commit all over the world, in any dimension – living or otherwise.

Rukia knew all this. She's been there before.

Yet Rukia kept her mouth shut, as they sat upon that rooftop, as her friend cried her heart out. She knew Orihime wasn't ready to face the truth yet.

Besides, Rukia also knew that there is nothing worse than a more experienced rival explaining her win to the first runner-up. Rukia didn't want to be that person. She didn't want to gloat. She wanted to help ease her friend's pain.

And so she told Orihime pretty half-truths.


	4. Secret Smile

_**4. Secret Smile**_

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Rukia pretended not to have gain full consciousness yet, as she lay on that rooftop after being gutted by Grimmjow. Orihime was healing her, but Rukia's bleary eyes did not focus on her pretty friend, hallowed by the moonlight.

Rukia's eyes could only concentrate on Ichigo and the tender look of concern on his face, as he patiently watched the tedious treatment at work. Slack-mouthed, his guard had dropped as he displayed his infinite anxiety over her well-being.

When she finally brought herself to be fully awake, Ichigo turned away. He was cautiously optimistic about her recovery. He did not speak any kind words of comfort to her. Rukia knew better, though: his heart was flooded with a relief he desperately wanted to hide from plain sight.


	5. The Mirror Within

_**5. The Mirror Within

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**_

Ichigo didn't want to believe that the man Rukia killed – the one who haunted her dreams – resembled him in the slightest.

Yet he had to accept this as a possibility for why Rukia trusted him in the first place.

During his short stay in Soul Society, Captain Ukitake was kind enough to tell him about it. The Captain's perception was uncanny – he knew that rumors and idle speculation were rife. It was only a matter of time before the Shinigami representative heard of it from dubious or drunken sources.

When Ichigo was told, he scoffed. Then his irritation abated. He visited the Shiba house and asked to see any photos of his supposed doppelganger. A single image was produced for inspection – a black-and-white ink sketch that occupied a place on the family shrine.

It was like peering into a reflective surface. He turned away from it and then sulked.

He did not want to talk to Rukia about it. She would tell him when she was ready. He did not want to know if she had really loved this other man, as some insinuated she did. Ichigo did not want to know because he did not want to be jealous of the face in the mirror, and start longing for the memories of a former life he simply could not remember.

He didn't want to be Kaien because he didn't want what he shared with Rukia to be overshadowed by her past.

Ichigo thought: I cannot be Kaien. It is merely a superficial likeness. Kaien is dead. A Hollow consumed him. His soul did not return to the living world.

_What's wrong with having a recycled soul, King? _A crackling voice jeered in his inner ear, intruding into his private thoughts. _Denial is the first step towards acceptance. Don't you have a Hollow of your own_?


	6. Biology Class

_**6. Biology Class**_

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Ichigo never thought that schoolwork could lead to apt metaphors for his relationships. His teachers were fond of trivial details he just needed to dig up, but he took to remembering only the most essential ideas of the working universe.

So when he checked Wikipedia for some minor detail in his homework, he didn't think it would ring any warning bells in his head:

_An example of mutual symbiosis is the relationship between clownfish of the genus Amphiphrion (family Pomacentridae) that dwell among the tentacles of tropical sea anemones. _

For some reason his thoughts wandered to Rukia, who was stretched out on his bed reading a magazine and eating chocolates when she knew he hated food of any kind on his bed.

_The territorial fish protects the anemone from anemone-eating fish, and in turn the stinging tentacles of the anemone protect the clownfish from its predators._

Ichigo grinned at the mental image. Rukia was small enough to be a clownfish, he thought. She's gotten me out of a lot of seriously fatal situations. And so far I've saved her from all her predators, everyone who'd ever want to hurt a hair on her head.

But wait. I am not an anemone! Ichigo's inner voice growled. I refuse to have tentacles in this scenario. I am not a grabby kind of guy.

_Not all anemones that house clownfish are in need of protection, but this does not rule out mutualism, as clownfish often share food with their anemone hosts. _

Rukia's given me strength and courage when I thought I had none, he had to concede to himself. She lessens all the heavy burdens just by being beside me.

Her most recent words of encouragement were the best: _You can do it because that's the kind of man I know you are._

She opens her big mouth and I can't help but be challenged, uplifted… or whatever.

Ichigo tilted his head to the side and scrutinized Rukia's lips as she devoured another piece of dark chocolate with delight. It must have had a creamy center; her tongue swished inside her mouth, licking her teeth clean, oblivious to the mesmerized young man a few feet away her.

Ichigo shook his head and forced himself to turn back to the computer screen.

_A single worm will be halved inside the clownfish's mouth, and a portion spit out in the anemone's wavering tentacles. _

A strangled yelp escaped his throat.

"What's wrong, Ichigo?" Rukia looked up from her magazine and cocked an eyebrow.

"Nothing," he mumbled. He turned to her and saw that she had a speck of chocolate on her chin. "Wipe your face, hobbit. You've got smudges."

Ichigo tried to focus on his research again, desperately trying not to imagine Rukia's mouth full of chocolate-covered worms and then sharing their first open-mouthed kiss. He didn't know if he was revolted or strangely aroused.

Mutualism is just _**so**_ wrong.

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Author's Note: The Wikipedia quotes are real. XD


	7. Casual Touch

_**7. Casual Touch**_

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Thinking back, Rukia knew that he liked to touch her in unexpected places.

Their first contact was with a swift kick in the back; the second was with only the sides of their palms touching on the hilt of her sword, her soul's power flowing into him. After that, it all snowballed.

He was always touching her. The first time he really held on to her, it was by the waist as they watched over the crumbling precipice of her execution site. It wasn't particularly passionate to be carried like a sack of potatoes, but the sentiment was there. Besides, he couldn't carry her in both arms – he needed to hold on to his zanpakutou, too.

_I can't protect you without holding a sword. I can't embrace you while holding a sword._

Of course after that brief contact he had to hurl her into Renji's all too willing arms. The bastards. She could have died from the impact of the fall, did he ever think of that?

He grabbed her by the waist once again, while standing over a leaking sink. By then their entire bodies were touching, and if she had wanted to she could have just leaned against him and surrendered. She would have started something then and there. A pity, really, that Ishida was trying to sleep in the same room, and so she controlled herself and pretended to be mad at him.

She was always touching Ichigo too. She's cradled his injured head in her lap and cried, her tears becoming one with his blood. She whacked him more times than she cares to blush for. She's pushed him out of his body with her favorite red glove, giving him an excuse to feel his face and his chest beneath her fingers. She's had to carry the dead weight of his body too many times, grabbing on to whatever body part was easiest at the moment; it was a feat that startled onlookers and Kon.

From the very start, she would piggyback on his broad back, her legs tucked comfortably under his arms, while he shunpo'ed through Karakura, and he never protested – not even once. In those moments nothing but a few scraps of cloth came between her crotch and his warm body – if it wasn't a matter between life and death the friction of his movements would be unbearable.

Of course, when Kon was in his body, he kept touching her too – more inappropriately – but that didn't count at all. She wished she could deceive herself, and pretend for a moment. But Rukia was never big on lies.

She liked it best, though, when he caressed her with his eyes. It didn't matter where it would happen – in an empty field in the outskirts of Rukongai, across the expanse of sand dunes in Hueco Mundo, even across the tiny distance from his bed to her closet. A look alone from Ichigo made her body ripen. She loved to watch him watching her: his furrowed brow lines would disappear and his lower lip would align with the rest of his mouth. His face relaxed and fell empty of tortured adolescence. When his eyes softened, they always touched her in all the secret places his mind would not yet dare openly desire, or his body would not yet wholly betray.


	8. Waiting

_**8. Waiting**_

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Ichigo was exhausted, bleeding, but he could not give up. Resolution fed his soul and therefore fueled his strength.

In the back of his mind he wondered if he made the right decision not to ask Inoue to go ahead and cure Rukia and the others.

Unfortunately, before he could save them he had to save himself. He also could not trust Inoue to get lost, murdered, or recaptured, or a thousand other likely scenarios before the girl found their friends, if she was left to her own resources. Despite her considerable powers and being the third smartest person in their year, Inoue alone constantly wavered in her resolve to get anything done on her own. She used stronger people like a crutch to get through her personal hells. Before it was Tatsuki; in this instance, it was he. That sort of dependence now irked Ichigo, especially at a time like this, with Rukia's life at stake.

As his blade sang, as he fought, as he took hit after hit, Ichigo took slim comfort in Rukia's weak reiatsu. It was fading but it was still there. Miraculously, she was still hanging on. When Rukia decided on a course of action, there was no one more tenacious.

He could trust Rukia to stay alive until he could make it to her side. All other options were unacceptable.


	9. A Shopkeeper's Lament

_**9. A Shopkeeper's Lament**_

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He always got the short end of the stick.

Ichigo had smacked him a good one with his elbow, after he had been thoughtful enough to rescue them from free-fall after emerging from Soul Society's portal. He had even apologized properly.

Still, he got smacked about. He made it a point never to get smacked about. That's why he developed so many illegal gadgets in the first place – it was for self-protection. He wouldn't have achieved bankai without it. Still, Urahara stroked his chin thoughtfully and did not take offense at Ichigo's snarling. _Perhaps I really deserved it this time_.

These kids, they just don't understand. They didn't realize that he had been watching Rukia from the very start, when she first began to receive short missions to the living world. It wasn't her first time in Karakura, and Urahara knew it. He knew she was clumsy with sword work and had a lamentable tendency to forget to watch her back. From her first sophomoric performance, he knew she had to have gotten into Gotei 13 with strings pulled. When he checked her background, he found out that she was the adopted Kuchiki who didn't quite fit in the Court of Pure Souls.

She got better over time, but not enough. Something was holding her back.

It was then it hit Urahara: this was a woman who wanted to be human. She just didn't know it yet. So he was going to help her in a way no one else could.

It was no coincidence, really, that while Rukia lay covered in blood on the pavement, and Ichigo was fighting that Hollow, he had shown up and said: "_Would you like to borrow a gigai?"_

Gigais aren't easy to make, even for a man of his unsurpassed scientific genius. Rukia was so confused that she didn't even question why he had an undetectable gigai all ready made in her spitting image in the first place. That was absurd on her part. Was she really that naïve, as to think he would keep spare gigais for all his regular customers?

Why, if he did that, he wouldn't have any place to store his stocks of candy.

And so he helped fit her to the gigai that concealed his biggest mistake. He helped her out some more, with paltry things like school uniforms and Soul Society accessories. He didn't have the heart to tell her that her bill was huge, much more than the bounty credit she gave him. He didn't mind. Rukia was paying for everything with the loss of her spiritual power, after all. In the scheme of things, it was a fair price.

He really didn't expect that her substitute Shinigami would prove to be so exceptional. Rukia herself didn't realize the potential of the boy until he had transformed into a powerhouse beyond her reckoning. Why had she offered the unthinkable – half of her powers – to that boy, if she had been blindsided by his uncontrollable spiritual strength?

Urahara had considered one possibility – she had hung around that boy's house, in order to gaze upon the possible reincarnation of a lost love. After all, she had no inkling that he could see her. Whether Ichigo was Kaien or not, Urahara couldn't say, but he had lived long enough not to believe in coincidences.

As time wore on, his old soul was strangely gratified to see them together: a petite elfin girl shadowed by a growing hunk of manhood. If all of Rukia's power were drained before his scheme was discovered, Rukia would have no choice. She could be with this boy for the rest of a human lifetime.

Would the boy mind being burdened with a suddenly human ex-Shinigami? Urahara reckoned Ichigo would secretly like it. It would be a way to redeem his actions beyond reproach. The boy's instinct to protect the weak ran deep. When he saw a woman in need, he probably relived the nightmare of being unable to save his own mother. It was understandable, but just so classically Freudian.

The boy's emotions were easily manipulated anyway. One just had to see the TV footage of him screaming Rukia's name to know that. Even without the audio it was pretty loud that there was some sort of connection between them. What needed to be settled between them was just a matter of time and raging hormones: they had both in abundance.

Everybody called him a cynic. But really, even Urahara liked a happy ending now and then.

So what. In the end he got two innocents into a hell of a lot of trouble. He did help them get out of it, right? _They survived and transformed into a higher state of being they otherwise couldn't attain without my help,_ Urahara thought_. So bite me. I get a kick out of your hypocritical disdain. It makes my life more interesting._


	10. Modern Love

_**10. Modern Love**

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_

The problem with Rukia, Ichigo thought, was that she believed that chivalry was dead. She would simply not let him play out his subconscious scenarios – stubborn mule. She always has to have her own way, and put him in his place.

He replayed it in his head too often, when he rushed off to the bridge by Shi-Shinro to rescue Ganju and Hanataro. They had gone as far as dragging Rukia out of her cell, only to be blocked by Byakuya.

A part of the scenario played out perfectly. Her head was turned towards him as he descended from the sky, a face full of surprise and unexpected joy. She was beautiful in that moment, his damsel in distress swathed in white. Was she even wringing her hands, trembling in anticipation, whispering his name? It was an ideal tableau for a closet romantic like him.

And then it all crashed down after he found he could not look at her in the eye as he said the fateful words, _"I have come here to rescue you."_

She did not say anything – nothing at all.

He had to prod her, he just had to demand words and gestures that Rukia was never going to give him without a fight. _"What's with the face? I came all the way here to help you! You could at least **smile**." _

He was such a knucklehead. He tacitly forgot that he was rescuing Rukia, who did not want him to follow her, who expressly forbade him to do so. She screamed at him, calling him a fool aside from other rude and unprintable things.

He found himself feeling young and callow as he gazed upon her bowed head.

Ichigo had an epiphany at that moment. It dawned upon him that Rukia's refusal to conform to his secret mental image of the ideal woman was the very thing he loved about her. Rukia always kept him on his toes. It was impossible not to love someone who kept challenging him to evolve. She made him a better version of himself he'd never be without her.

Chivalry wasn't dead. It just had find ways to be more cunning and subtle. Ichigo simply needed to outwit Rukia at the mind games she played with him. He did not need to bend her to his dominance – she only needed to acknowledge their mutual submission to each other.

After that, it would all be a generous surrender.


	11. View from the Floor

_**11. The View from the Floor**_

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As Rukia lay in a pool of her blood, only one thought recurred in her head:

_I cannot die here alone. I have to give my heart to Ichigo or else I will turn into a Hollow myself. _

Due to the shock of her multiple injuries, and in the wake of her declining consciousness, it slipped Rukia's memory that he had already took her heart, a long time ago. He took it the night she lay dying on the pavement and he willingly grabbed the hilt of her sword.

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_Author's Note: Thanks for all the great reviews so far! XD_


	12. A Captain's Soliloquy

_**12. A Captain's Soliloquy**_

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When a soul has weathered the millennia for as long as he has, it was best to think in the long-term.

Captain Ukitake always thought so. So while everyone else in the Gotei 13 was busy hustling about with petty concerns, he was worried about something totally different. His paternal soul was apprehensive about the boy Kurosaki Ichigo. A genius beyond reckoning, no doubt – his feats had the 12th Division reeling in the wake of his constant breakthroughs, as they made report after report analyzing his power.

His power was the problem, though. No soul, human or Shinigami, can be the vessel of too much power. Ukitake understood clichés well, especially this one: power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The boy needed a firm foundation to stand on to keep him grounded, to keep him pure. So far, his family and Kuchiki Rukia had filled this need.

What would happen to Kurosaki if these chains were severed? Would he become blinded by lust for utter dominion like Aizen? Would he degenerate into an amoral, war-hungry berserker like Kenpachi? Would he merely seek death like Kaien?

Ukitake didn't know the answer to these questions; it was too soon to tell. He merely knew that there would be sadness for one of his subordinates if these things happened to Kurosaki, the very one whom he wished to spare any more sorrow.

Kuchiki-san herself was seemingly down on the dumps lately. She seemed lonely, as if she no longer belonged here. She never totally lost that human expression on her face. That worried the good captain, too. Ukitake felt she deserved a break.

And so Ukitake made up his mind. He summoned Kuchiki Rukia to his office.

"I have a mission for you in the living world," he told her. "In Karakura, I believe, you would be comfortable. You already know the territory well. It will be an extended stay, so get ready to go by tomorrow."

"Karakura again?" Rukia's eyes widened, but checked her puzzled frown when she saw the Captain study her. She should register no emotions at all. "Of course, Captain. Do you have a file for me?"

"Yes, it's here somewhere," he said dismissively, waving his hand at the stacks of paperwork on his desk. "I'll hand it to you before you leave." He coughed a bit. "I won't be able to send anyone else but you. So if you need help you may partner up with our human representative, of course."

Rukia wanted to sigh. Really, Captain Ukitake was so transparent. Why did he insist on throwing her in Ichigo's path? The young man was dense but not entirely stupid. After their last fight he might not want to see her again so soon, but she could hardly argue with her superior.

She always worried that Ichigo would start accusing her of stalking him. It's not as if she had a choice in the matter.

"As you wish, sir." Rukia took her leave, wondering how Byakuya was going to take this assignment – it would be the third time this year.

Ukitake smiled to himself, as he began to paw through documents, anything that would give a plausible, compelling reason for this impromptu mission. He should be able to come up with something in time.

Ukitake believed in bestowing gifts, especially when people least expect it.


	13. Permission Denied

Renji contemplates the moment his universe changed.

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_**13. Permission Denied**_

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Ichigo's innate sense to protect Rukia at all costs overwhelmed even the man who should hate him most.

In the first of their many encounters, he could not understand such pig-headed determination to safeguard the woman whom Ichigo knew for only two months. What had really passed between them during that time?

For Renji, it was simply a mystery. He had spent decades in Rukia's presence. They had watched each other age since childhood. He had let her go without a show of reluctance in school, and then later on as they were assigned to different divisions in the Gotei 13.

Drifting away from her was a bitter part of his life. He had let social conventions sever the strongest tie he had ever known. He never wholly accepted it, and he never quite moved on. His heart was weak and he regretted it. His only goal for years was to prove himself worthy of her adopted family, to prove that he was not dirt because of his humble beginnings. Yet all this seemed unattainable, and therefore was a self-imposed route to despair.

Ichigo did not suffer from the same nightmares as him. Ichigo was simply never discouraged; he could not let go of her. Maybe he never believed in class distinctions to begin with. It was either naiveté or idealism that compelled Ichigo to believe that no one was beyond his reach. In Renji's mind, that audacity is what made Ichigo the better man for their Rukia.

Rukia repeated one of the many things Ichigo said during her rescue. The nerve of the pup, she laughed:

_Quit telling me to leave you alone and go home. I told you… all your opinions are rejected._

She may have joked about it, but he knew the real score. Even Captain Kuchiki found Ichigo's brazen manner of defending Rukia's life baffling.

_Execute your sister? I won't let you say that in front of Rukia ever again. _

Why did this boy have the nerve to assume he had authority over Rukia? Who gave him the right to give or deny permission to her, he who had no ties of blood? His passionate defense of her was illogical, given that he was not a brother, a husband, a father or a lover – if one was to believe their denials.

For Renji, the most important question remained unanswered: what did Rukia _do_ to this young man, to inspire him to defy all the rules she used to cherish and hold dear?

He simply did not _know. _That's why Renji knew it was the proper time to concede defeat.


	14. Expectation Unfulfilled

_Summary: _Petty discontent rears its ugly head.

_Author's Note: Spoilers for chapter 285 or 286. This was written before chapter 290 was published._

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_**14. Expectation Unfulfilled**_

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Ichigo didn't have a romantic bone in his body. At least, that's how it seemed to Orihime at the moment. Perhaps he was too involved in the pragmatic rescue of every friend he cared for, sweeping a princess off her feet properly was not a priority. He was more interested in getting off this crumbling plateau and finding Rukia, Chad, Renji, and Ishida than carrying her properly.

Orihime wanted to take stock in the consolation that Ichigo had slung Rukia like a sack of potatoes, too, when he rescued her. She didn't realize that the indignity of it would chafe her soul.

Funny, the same situation didn't seem to faze Rukia at all.

Nell was being carried in a similarly rough fashion. But that didn't count, because Nell was just a kid.

"_But I'm very heavy."_ Orihime protested, almost blushing. Couldn't he use both arms, like a newlywed bride?

_"Don't worry about it… It's not as bad as I expected,_" he replied, almost puzzled why she was making such a fuss.

Orihime was adamant. Did he just imply that I was fat? What an evil young man! He's such a dense ogre!

She wasn't sure how many blows to the ego she could take in one lifetime. It was merely another thing to envy Rukia: that Shinigami bitch was built like an elf.

This was wrong. Tatsuki said all the boys in school desired her because she was like a beautiful Barbie doll. They would all trip over each other for the opportunity to carry her off into the sunset. Why was it that the guy she liked treated her in this shabby fashion? Why, it seemed that Ichigo really preferred petite and svelte dead girls! At this particular moment, Orihime would give _anything _to be the girl he wanted, the one he rescued out of more than obligation.

Why did all her daydreams have to crumble in this grotesque, realistic fashion?

Life wasn't fair.


	15. Photograph

_The secret life of Ichigo's fashion sense is exposed.

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_**15. Photograph

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**_

Ichigo kept his wallet attached to a chain and clipped to his jeans all the time. There was an excellent reason for this. It was more than a fashion statement, a matter of security or even the old habit of losing his wallet every time his horoscope said he would. There was something in there he didn't want anyone to see.

It was the cheesiest thing in the world, but Ichigo kept it in his wallet all the same. Underneath the crumbled cash folded in halves, stray receipts, business cards for the family clinic, and the remnants of Karin's first origami crane, there it lay, concealed. In a secret compartment, hidden between a bit of folded paper was a photo of Rukia and himself.

He didn't even know when they had it taken. He couldn't even remember the circumstances clearly. Obviously they had nothing to do that day, so perhaps it was a weekend, and there weren't any Hollows mucking about town.

Maybe it was during that time he was finally forced to take Rukia shopping, because Yuzu caught him rifling through her stuff. After getting the third degree for going through her closet, Ichigo decided to be magnanimous that day. Springing for some new outfits for Rukia would set back his savings for a new skateboard and a replacement for the baseball bat he had reduced to toothpicks, but at least it would avoid any more awkward confrontations.

Of course, the little witch was only delighted to spend his money. Rukia didn't give even him a right to veto her oh-so-boring choices.

After she got all the stuff she could possibly carry with two hands (he refused to carry her girly packages), and they had some pizza ("What sort of okonomiyaki is this supposed to be?" Rukia demanded suspiciously), they were ready to go home. At least, Ichigo thought they were ready to go.

Then Rukia espied one of those cute little pink Hello Kitty photo booths that seem to sprout out like cancerous growths in every strip mall in town.

Then the world came tumbling down.

"What's that?" she started bouncing up and down, and of course he had to explain, and after that happened she had to drag him in front of the booth and insisted that she had a whole series taken because they don't have these things in Soul Society, damn it, at least not for fun, and she had to have at least one cute souvenir of her time stranded here in the living world.

So grudgingly, unwillingly, Ichigo shelled out the last of his cash, leaving just enough for the fare home, as Rukia fiddled forever with selecting the different floral backgrounds and messages. She took photo after photo while Ichigo was beginning to regret being nice to her at all, as he waited and fidgeted outside the photo booth and finally banged on the door for her to hurry up.

The door opened and Rukia seized him by the collar. The next thing he knew he was blinded by multiple flashes of light.

After a few moments of sheer panic, he stumbled out of the booth, laden with Rukia's stuff. All the way home, she crowed like a child over her newly printed photos and mocked him for his horrible facial contortions. She refused to show them to him, they fought, and they didn't speak again until the next day.

Ichigo forgot all about the incident until she left. After Rukia left… there was nothing.

Not a trace of her remained.

For hours he agonized, feeling curiously empty. Pacing about his bedroom at night, he began opening and closing things at random: the closet, the radio, the set of drawers, and the study lamp.

When Ichigo reached for the desk and pulled it open, Rukia was there, staring back at him. The photos of her were there – all the copies she had made.

For a moment he held Rukia in his hands. In multiple poses surrounded by insane bunnies and pink hearts, Rukia was obviously having the time of her life. He had never seen her with such a light-hearted glimmer in her eyes.

More importantly, there it was: the single clear shot with him in the booth, his eyes screwed tight, her hands resting on his shoulders. His lips were partially open, as if he just uttered an obscenity; hers sparkled with a naughty smile.

Together, they couldn't pass for siblings. Yet they didn't look like a conventional couple, either.

Ichigo stared at the image for a long time. He didn't know why she had left all her souvenirs behind.

_Did Rukia have these photos taken for me? She's so full of herself! Did she really think I would miss her once she was gone? Did she think I wouldn't worry about her if I saw her smiling up at me?_

For a moment he was so furious he was about to dump the whole batch of photos in the trash when he stopped himself.

He thought of the cold-blooded eyes of the Shinigamis who came to take her away. He remembered her last look of despair at him, as she demanded him not to follow her and to think of happier times.

Without even realizing what he was doing, Ichigo took their photograph and put it in the one place he felt it was safe, a hiding place he kept chained to him.

Ichigo felt silly. He would kill anyone with his bare hands, anyone who so much as caught a glimpse of that photo. Sometimes he liked to pretend it wasn't even there, this odd memento: a stolen moment frozen in space, a split second of a single day they spent together. It was a lifetime ago.


	16. Everything She Wore

_Ichigo learns why sleepwear should never be shared.

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_**16. Everything She Wore

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**_

"What's wrong, onii-chan?"

Ichigo was pale.

"Nothing," he denied, looking at Yuzu, apparently dumbstruck by her presence at this late hour. He left his bedroom in the middle of the night to make some hot chocolate – he was still working on some fiendish calculus problems – and there she was, padding about with messy hair and furry slippers.

Yuzu was wearing Rukia's checked pajamas. "Where did you find those pj's?" he asked carefully. "I thought you lost them."

His sister reached for a glass and poured herself some milk from the refrigerator. "It was weird. I found them in your closet, underneath the winter bedding."

_Now why would it be in my closet? _Ichigo thought. _Oh, maybe a little Shinigami put it there._

Yuzu was wearing Rukia's checked pajamas. It just didn't seem right to Ichigo. Yes, he knew that Rukia had appropriated Yuzu's favorite pair for more than a year. After all this time they now seemed to belong only to Rukia. They no longer belonged to Yuzu in the same way that he wasn't fully human anymore.

For starters, the pajamas seemed to swallow his sister whole. They were now threadbare and stretched out. On Rukia, however, the pajamas were tight in all the right places, showing off the curves of her elfin breasts and the slight rounded flesh of her buttocks.

Ichigo tried not to think of the last time he saw Rukia in those pajamas and how he had peeled them off her vanilla-scented skin.

"Want some hot chocolate, kiddo?" he asked. He avoided eye contact. "I can make some more."

"No, I'm fine," Yuzu yawned. She curled up like a kitten on a chair, sipping her milk. Ichigo knew his baby sister was going to grow up to be a heart-breaker – she was the one who most resembled their beautiful mom, after all – but he just didn't like seeing her in those damned pajamas.

The more Ichigo thought of it, he loathed seeing Yuzu in a lot of the clothes Rukia borrowed from her, like the blue striped dress or the short denim skirt. He absolutely detested seeing Yuzu in the floral violet dress that brought out the intensity in Rukia's amethyst eyes.

It wasn't fair to his sister who owned the stuff but it wasn't fair to _him_, damn it. It irked him. Yuzu was just too kind-hearted to say no to anything Rukia asked of her. Still, Ichigo could no longer see those outfits without being reminded of Rukia or imaging the woman he loved inside of them.

He kept thinking of Rukia, the woman who kept leaving him only to come back.

"You should retire those jammies, kiddo," Ichigo remarked. "They're falling apart." He pointed to holes in the both knees and a huge but mended rip on the right sleeve. The buttons, too, were mismatched and askew. He knew exactly when and why those clothes suffered such ill treatment but he wasn't about to reveal that to Yuzu. It was too private a matter.

"You noticed?" Yuzu touched her arm. "I think you're right."

"Tell you what," Ichigo suggested. "You give me those jammies and I'll take you shopping this weekend. I know a lot of things in your closet that need… replacing. Let's weed out your closet of old stuff."

"Really, onii-chan?" Yuzu's sleepy face brightened. She hadn't gone shopping with her big brother in ages. He was always too busy now to attend to her. "But… what about Karin?"

Ichigo stilled. Did Rukia borrow anything from Karin? He wasn't sure. Karin's tomboyish style didn't appeal to Rukia. There was no harm in covering all bases. "Let's take Karin too. She needs to start wearing something other than caps and soccer shorts. We can leave Goat-chin behind. He has horrible taste in clothes, anyway."

Yuzu kissed her brother on the cheek. "Thanks, onii-chan," she said, giving him a big hug. "You're so sweet. I think I'll go back to sleep now."

"You do that," he said. "Good night." As he watched his baby sister mosey back to bed, Ichigo could only think of Rukia and how she filled out the very same well-worn yellow flannel. He knew how soft the cotton was to his fingertips.

Same garments, different females: two indispensable women in his life. They made him whole by fulfilling separate and distinct roles in his world.

Ichigo sure wanted to keep it that way, fully knowing how he was the one who had ripped off all the buttons of those pajamas in a fit of uncontained passion.

Rukia never did find them all.


	17. Binary Oppositions

Ichigo attempts to use critical theory to analyze his mixed emotions. Zero results ensue.

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_**17. Binary Oppositions

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**_

Ichigo didn't know why he loved her anyway.

Her attitude was hardly endearing. Too often she was preachy and bossy. She pushed him around too much to the point of insurrection, like oppressive feudal nobility dealing with a powerless serf. She made decisions without his input and expected him to live with them.

She lived in his house without permission and expected him to sneak in food for her, steal clothes from his sister's wardrobe for her, and stand guard at the door while she took very long baths at odd hours at night. She expected him to protect her in this manner, and yet she tried to send him away when it came to the question of snatching her from death.

Even the minor things she did drove him nuts.

She told him that William Shakespeare was a plagiarist. She insulted his idol, saying Shakespeare's plays were full of clichés.

She melodramatically covered her ears with a spare set of earphones to muffle the sound when he even just _looked_ at one of his CDs. She said his music was noisy and he was going to go deaf in ten years if he continued to listen to that trash. She said that when he died and gone to Soul Society, he'd _still _be hearing-impaired from the repeated cacophony.

And her clothes… she went around dressed like she raided a granny's closet, with those boring one-piece dresses that never exposed her nice thighs like her school uniform did. (Then again, Ichigo considered, when you buy your first garments on credit from Urahara's Store, a woman was bound to make mistakes. The owner was hardly a fashion plate with that stupid striped hat.)

She liked cute things like little backpacks and bunnies. Rabbits, for crying out loud. He couldn't stand rodents in any shape or size.

She was so tiny he could just stuff her in his pocket. She was a cute little thing herself.

Rukia was everything he wasn't.

She was like dry ice. She was cold from a distance and yet she burned him with the slightest contact. She was a dangerous substance but he was like a child who couldn't control his curiosity. She could damage him but her unexplored depths were fascinating.

He couldn't escape from her even if he tried. He could not help but be engrossed and consumed by her. She was everything he didn't know he had always wanted.


	18. Binary Oppositions Redux

Rukia's never heard of dichotomies but she recognizes she's living in one.

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_**18. Binary Oppositions Redux

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**_

Speed was always Ichigo's strong point.

She was slow. She was not naturally nimble on her feet. It was a skill learned and honed from living in desperation on the streets of Rukongai. She was slow to pick up on sword-fighting techniques to the disgust of her instructors at the Academy. Later on, she was too cowed to prove her worth; it took Kaien's effort to devote hours to her training that finally gave her self-confidence.

Everywhere Rukia went she was slow to defend herself from sneak attacks, sly insinuations, and nasty backstabbing.

After she took the Kuchiki surname, some of the very people who treated her ill began to defer to her with profound reverence she found suffocating. If she didn't act the role of ice princess, if she let her guard slip and showed an ounce of friendliness or sympathy, they would pounce on her for social favors. To preserve her sanity, she cut everyone off, denying everyone the right to her intimacy. She would rather be called a snob than be used, and abuse the same kindness and gentility bestowed upon her by her adopted family.

She let them all cry out her name like dogs howling for the moon.

Rukia was confused by so many worries that it nearly rendered her emotionally inert. Not finding a reason to rush about for anything, she didn't. Her zapankutou's power was ice, after all: it is a state of water that forms over time, isolation and a temperature that can barely sustain life.

Before she interrupted his existence, Ichigo was so ordinary. He had a family that loved every last strand of orange hair on his head. He had friends and a regular routine. Before that fateful night, the only thing extraordinary about him was his spiritual presence, and his ability to accept, with much alacrity, everything that happened to him – from chatty ghosts stalking him to upperclassmen trying to kick his ass. He may pretend to be a doubting Thomas, but his level of acceptance of her, letting her become an essential part of his daily routine, showed her what he was really made of.

He was noisy, dense and masculine. He was rough and crabby. And yet… he could be kind in an off-hand manner. The way he handed her juice boxes reminded her of someone else who used to be special in her life, someone who also handed her drinks, messed up her hair and yelled at her.

Ichigo didn't believe in conferring respect if it was not yet earned. He didn't treat her with any sort of deference, whether due to her actual age or social standing. When he argued with her, it was on common ground. He just treated her as equal to himself.

How could she be so stupid? It took Rukia months to comprehend that this is what she _needed _her entire life. Someone who would not coddle then abandon her, like Renji; someone who didn't consider her a pet project, like Kaien; someone who didn't treat her with condescension, like Byakuya.

Ichigo was like the sun – scorching, relentless, life-giving. And he melted all her defenses until she shone with his light. She was just like a satellite, being kept in place in his universe by sheer force of his will. The pull of his gravity was irresistible.


	19. Delusions of a Stuffed Toy

Kon is getting tired of waiting for Ichigo to make a move on Rukia. His popcorn's going stale.

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_**19. Delusions of a Stuffed Toy

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**_

They won't admit it, but I'm the third party in this ménage à trois.

I would like to point out that ménage à trois refers not just to kinky sex but also to "a household of three." Sometimes it's a matter of mutual emotional dependence than actual physical relations.

How else can you describe Ichigo's bedroom life, if not that? Rukia confides in me when Ichigo's being a jerk; Ichigo needs me to keep his human body alive when he's out playing rabid Shinigami, while I…. I don't really have a choice in the matter, do I?

If I run away again, Chad might find me. Then what? I fear for my safety. It's not my fault I'm so damned cute.

We don't have to have sex with each other for this relationship to be a threesome – the idea of sex with Ichigo is just too gross for a healthy straight mod-soul like me – but Rukia…. I think about that all the time. Hot damn. She's only female who can make kiddie-sized pajamas look like lingerie.

Rukia's the very definition of virginal sex kitten. I'm king of the jungle, man. Hear me roar.

Now don't give me that stumped look because I can _spell _ménage à trois. Am I supposed to be dumb, because I'm stuck in this stupid stuffed body? I can still read. There's nothing interesting on Ichigo's bookshelves except dictionaries and reference books. I'm lucky to find some shonen manga. Now, my darling Rukia… she has more juicy material: titles like "Motorcycle Lolita," "Adventures with Redhead and Midget," and "School Girl Smackdown." She has good taste in literature, my Rukia.

I just wish they would have been kinder and bought a male sex doll for me to inhabit, one of those life-like specialties with hydraulics that you can order online and cost a bundle. But no, they're so cheap they had to pick a stray toy off the street. Then they complain I smell. It's not my fault. It's the death of their nasal cavities, not mine.

I also wished they weren't so damn repressed. I know they like to kick me around, it's their way of expressing their feelings of gratitude towards me, and I let them do it because they saved me from utter destruction at the hands of that insane shopkeeper. But I do wish they weren't so repressed around _each other_. I mean, what's the point of being a privileged member of Ichigo's bedroom if I don't ever have the opportunity to watch them get hot and heavy? It's not as if I'm not fit to be anything other than a voyeur in this body.

A hand made of cotton wad and polyester fiber is not one to induce the most erotic of caresses. I'd love to do all those naughty things I know Ichigo thinks about whenever he looks at Rukia. But since I can't, I wouldn't mind watching him get some action.

The problem is, he doesn't! He doesn't make a move! What a stupid prick. He doesn't have a clue. Why have a great big blooming zapakatou if you aren't going to use it?

Idiot. That's why I like to rile them up so much, by trying to cop a feel whenever I have the chance. Ichigo always looks like he's going to burst a major artery when I do that. I keep hoping that one day it motivates him to do the same, to snatch my tiny paws off darling Rukia's chest to replace it with his own, but no. He's too _honorable_ for that.

It's not as if Rukia is going to reject him. She's the one who moved in, right? That's not exactly subtle. She's been sending out all the signals that even idiots like Keigo can pick up. Her taste in literature makes things crystal clear: the woman has _needs_. One day she's going to have those needs _satisfied_. I don't know when.

So I'm simply waiting for that fateful day they both utterly crack from the sexual tension. I just know it's going to set off fireworks in the sky. Don't worry. I'm patient and I got my stock of popcorn ready.

In the meantime, however, I think I will go back to devouring Rukia's newest acquisition: "Transsexual Werewolves of the Night." It's riveting.


	20. In or Out

_Speculations regarding his sexual preference just irk Ichigo.

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_**20. In or Out

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**_

Ichigo knew that some people in school speculated that he was gay. It was an insane rumor started by Mizuiro, whose only evidence was squat.

It wasn't his fault that he wasn't into dating any girls in their class and that his curfew was so strict as to render him without a social life on weeknights. He had other things to fill his time, like chasing Hollows who always tailed his ass.

Ichigo wasn't homophobic. He was convinced that Ikkaku and Yumichika were secretly married and that was fine with him. They were cute together and their relationship worked; they seemed to have been together for centuries. He gave Ishida the benefit of the doubt because he freaked out when Inoue was going to undress in front of him. Only a man with scruples would freak out: a cad like Kon would welcome the chance, and a real gay man wouldn't care at all.

Ichigo thought all this speculation was a waste of his time. Let them drop dead wondering what was the truth about his preference.

So Ichigo let them keep on guessing if he was gay, a virgin, a secret sex maniac, or a misogynist pig that scowled at women and preferred the brawny company of the 11th division. Ichigo knew better.

He wasn't hiding any skeletons in his closet. As far as he was concerned, there was no secret in there, except for Rukia.


	21. A Bloody Mess

Ichigo had a small problem: Tatsuki didn't want him to break Orihime's heart. After meeting Rukia, though, now he had a bigger dilemma: Ichigo doesn't see how he _cannot_ do that.

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_**21. A Bloody Mess**_

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Ichigo knew that Inoue didn't love him. Not really.

Tatsuki had told him off, very early, the summer before freshman year. "Don't play with Orihime's heart," she warned him. "If you like her then go for it. But if you're just going to go for her because she's easy prey, I swear I'll scatter your brains on all the sidewalks of Karakura."

At the time Ichigo it took several minutes to realize that Tatsuki was serious. Tatsuki had to hit him on the head repeatedly before he got it. Even if Ichigo wanted to hit back for the unprovoked attack, even if he could beat Tatsuki by then, he really wasn't going to put up a fight for this cause. There was no argument, really.

It was difficult for him to tell Tatsuki, "Hey, I'm really not interested in Inoue." To say such a thing would have appeared conceited. He could hardly remember who Inoue was, half the time, much less be interested in her.

Besides, Tatsuki should know better. He wasn't the type of guy to be an asshole and to take advantage of someone else's feelings. To try to clarify his lack of interest, however, would to be open the floodgates of girlish speculation. Was he gay? Was he already interested in someone else?

So he had shrugged off Tatsuki and changed the topic. What did Tatsuki want him to do, tell Inoue he was rejecting her, when she hadn't even said a word yet? He was kind of glad that Inoue was too bashful to even ask him out. He didn't want the situation to reach that difficult point. He hoped he would never have to break any girl's heart.

Ichigo knew he could be a jerk but he didn't want to be a prick.

Inoue didn't love him. Not really. She didn't even know the first thing about him. She just liked the _idea_ of him.

Unfortunately, the idea of her wasn't as appealing as it should have been. As an object of lust, Ichigo knew that Inoue was probably the best that could be had in school. Yet there were so many odd things about her he couldn't quite fathom, like how she liked to spin leeks or how she greeted him with unnatural cheerfulness. The wistful expression in her eyes made Ichigo feel awkward. It was as if he was a promising template for some weird fantasy. Maybe Inoue was really looking for a replacement for her dead brother. Whatever it was, she made him uncomfortable.

He wanted Inoue to stop with her looking, so he kept his distance. He had always cultivated a too-cool-to-care-about-girls aura. He scowled at all of them so he wouldn't have to deal their wiles – which included copying his homework, making him pay for food, or all of those hundred little favors that Mizuiro had to do for his girlfriends, and Keigo was desperate to do if someone of the opposite gender would just accept him.

Ichigo didn't need that sort of hassle. He already had two tiny females at home to take care of. Even at aged eleven, they were a handful. He didn't need another chick to manage.

And then he had the strange fortune to meet Rukia, who was demanding, domineering, a workaholic, and just a bit crazy. He found himself losing his dignity and his sanity just to keep up with her.

Then the day came when he had yelled at Rukia with acerbic passion. He was so pissed off that she had taken so many hits, just to drive a Hollow away from Chad and his possessed parakeet. The words flung out his mouth were not romantic. "**_Look at you! You're a bloody mess! You said you wouldn't take unnecessary risks!"_**

_"Oh shut up,"_ she snapped, thinking about how he had to take Karin home before he dealt with this monster. _"I had to say that! Anyway, they weren't unnecessary." _

It was then he had an epiphany – the first of many. Standing on top of that boorish Hollow's head, Ichigo knew why no other woman would hold his interest like the one standing before him now. Grinning and bleeding, this pint-sized Shinigami understood the complexity of his mind well enough to anticipate his instincts, disarm his fears, and help him decide which responsibility to tackle before taking on another. This was a member of the opposite gender whom he could actually talk to about serious things. She put him at ease, and she was more interested in his soul than any trivial aspect of his humdrum life.

Ichigo realized that he cared deeply about the welfare of this woman who changed his life. He wouldn't be so angry with her for risking _hers_ if he wasn't.

And that's why he flung opened up his arms wide to receive her incoming blow to the chest – to let Rukia do her thing so well. She pushed his soul out of his body, and made him come into his own. It was a gesture of his whole-hearted trust in her and their partnership. No one else could touch him with such brutal intimacy.


	22. Strength versus Weakness

This is a brief discourse on power and gender politics in Soul Society, and why Rukia may be too complicated for some male minds.

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_Those who master others are strong_

_Those who master themselves have true power. – Lao Tse_

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**_22. Strength versus Weakness_**

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Sometimes it was better to know one's limit than to think oneself a god.

Still, Rukia wished that people would stop taking her to task for even having limitations. She knew the evil things that were said behind her back when she returned to the stately Kuchiki residence, after her incarceration. She was resting, looking out at the view of the garden when she heard a mere sample of such friendly venom.

"Such a weak girl we had to adopt because of Byakuya-sama," one relative complained in a loud whisper, as he passed by the hall.

"A disgrace upon our noble house and on the sacred memories of our strong warriors," another added. "It was bad enough that Byakuya allowed himself to be wounded to rescue her from Gin. But that all this time, she had relied on the goodness of a ryoka to survive in the living world… It's preposterous. What has become of our pride? That piece of human filth should stop trying to save her all the time."

They hushed upon seeing Rukia but the words were already spoken. She did not turn around to indicate that she heard them; let them think she was dozing in the sunlight.

Rukia wished that such words had ceased to hurt her, but they still did. She knew she was not weak. She just had a hard time proving it when so many were much stronger than her.

There was not a course in the Shinigami Academy on modern feminism (the school, of course, was set up by a stodgy old patriarch) and no one had thought to educate Rukia on the dichotomy of female stereotypes including martyr/bitch and virgin/whore. Why so many people hated her in Soul Society and the living world, she could not fathom.

She did not realize the scorn came from their ignorance and the inability to see her as a complex individual and not just an inflatable doll.

Comparison was never good for a person's self-esteem. Her breasts were not big like Orihime; she wasn't as sweet as Hisana. She wasn't a prattling magical child like Yachiru nor was she as willing to use devious wiles like Rangiku. Everyone had an opinion, and they were secretly saying that she didn't exploit herself enough.

Yet when she had a weakness, she was only marked down for a fool.

How could a woman – any woman, for that matter – measure up to these contradictory standards? Of course she couldn't even begin to compare to the men in her life. If she used her zanpakutou she was phallus-obsessed but if she didn't she was a liability. Her shikai might be graceful but Renji's had more brute force and Byakuya always won, hands-down, for deadly pink prettiness.

She wasn't stronger than Ichigo, whom she originally gave her powers to – but then again, Ichigo turned out to be a monster of infinite power. She could never be stronger than him. Ichigo made other men like Kenpachi feel stymied and emasculated, for crying out loud.

Only her kidou was good – even better than Renji and other seated officers, but this did not seem to matter when these dimwitted men made a point of yelling bankai at ear-splitting decibel levels.

Rukia wasn't going to air these demeaning complaints. To voice them out loud would be to give shape to the shadow of her existence. She was going to banish them and when the time came, she will train again and find her own bankai to shut them all up for good. Her full potential hasn't been reached yet. They all keep forgetting that. Bankai may come to one person every few generations in one family; suddenly she was glad she was adopted. The possibility lingered in Rukia's mind that she still had unknown power she had yet to tap. She had all the time in the world to find it.

Hope was the one gift no one could take away from her.


	23. Power Struggle

Ichigo knows that power is best in the hands of those who can restrain it.

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**_23. Power Struggle_**

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Ichigo was never bothered that he always had to look out for Rukia. It was just the way things were between them. She never asked him; it was just his base instinct to do it. If it was a debt he had to pay for the rest of his life, and he would pay it gladly with lots of interest.

So he didn't take too kindly to fools who suggested that Rukia was a pain in the ass and an overestimated fighter, and that no woman worthy of his attention should be impaired with such a martyr complex. From his point of view, Rukia wasn't a martyr: no martyr could recover from such spectacular injuries as she has. If she didn't have any resolve, she would have been dead as an infant. Nor was she a bitch: she wouldn't have bothered with him in the first place if she were truly unkind.

He knew he had to curb his own tendencies to protect her. Renji had taken him to task about it before. Love had a way of messing with his brain and just looking at her everyday – from her delicate ankles and wrists to the peak of her chin – always made him forget she was a trooper.

How could Rukia _not _have any strength? She gave him the power to choose: save his family or die with them. He had given her the same choice after he saved her – to stay in Soul Society or return to the living world with him. Letting go of her at that moment was the most painful thing he ever did. He could not even go and touch her to convince her otherwise even if he was aching to do so. Ichigo could not dominate her then and take away her choice from her, because it would mean he was no better than her brother or the rules of Soul Society.

When Ichigo thought deeply enough about it, he knew that some of Rukia's true power stemmed from doing all the superficial nasty things to _him_ with impunity. She was always the exception to the rule. For reasons he kept to himself, he liked to keep things that way, if it gave her the illusion of control.

He knew he had the upper hand in this relationship, anyway. Ichigo just didn't want to rub it in her face. He learned enough psychology in class to know that a person who struggled under the weight of obligation was the one who was most likely to bite back.

Gratitude is a heavy burden to carry; it creates inequality. During their first months together, he was constantly biting back at her. He was just chafing inside that she had saved his life and his family by turning him into a substitute Shinigami. Rukia had simply ignored his boorishness. So when the tables turned, Ichigo decided to be the bigger person without a fuss.

So now Ichigo did stuff because he secretly liked to keep her happy. Everyone who had a problem with that, they could go fuck their grandfathers.

That's why he didn't mind when Rukia kicked him about every time they met. It took a lot of self-control not to hit back and retaliate. He could pulverize her to bits, and they both knew it. It was merely a game of sweet nothings, a public form of violent foreplay. It was part of the clandestine language they spoke that no one else could understand: it had no words, only loud actions.


	24. Age Doesn't Matter Anymore

It can get noisy in Ichigo's head when both the Hollow and the Old Man give him reasons why a simple foot massage should lead to sex.

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**_24. Age Doesn't Matter Anymore_

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**

Rukia was asleep on his bed again. It wasn't fair she was curled up in his favorite spot.

Ichigo dropped his bag lightly on his desk and wanted to frown. He wanted to, but he couldn't, because she was looked so exhausted and restful there. It was as if no harm could come to her in this space, she was in a safety zone that protected her from the evils of the world – from Hollows and Arrancar alike, even from the memories she sought desperately to forget.

Ichigo's room protected her from all these things. He wished, wistfully, that he could protect her from himself.

He sat at the edge of the bed, by her feet. He permitted himself that much. He had the right to watch over her sleep, didn't he?

It was then he noticed that Rukia had incredibly small feet. He was amazed; she had calluses where her sandals chafed. There were so many spots where the socks failed to protect her. No woman should have such rough soles. Rukia really didn't take care of herself enough, Ichigo thought angrily.

Absentmindedly, he lifted one delicate foot into his lap and began to massage it. As a child he often saw Isshin do the same for his mother, after a long day of housework and errands around town. It always brought beatific smiles to his mother's face. Isshin would start with the heels and work his way down to her toes. Unlike Rukia, his mother's feet were long and elegant.

By the time Isshin finished massaging one foot, Masaki would give his father this warning look and Ichigo would find himself bundled up for bedtime sooner that he could open his mouth to protest.

Ichigo still didn't understand the blurred line between foot massages and foreplay.

He kneaded the toughened skin, wishing he had some lotion of some kind to soften her feet. Rukia did not wake up despite the rubbing; she seemed to even fall deeper into a very pleasant dream. Her face lost the icy determination she reserved for battle. She looked innocent and vulnerable – just like the teenaged girl she was masquerading to be.

Ichigo wanted to wake her up with a kiss, but he quickly buried that thought. Instead he applied steady pressure to her knotted muscles, working his way to her lower calf.

The voices in his head noticed his motions gliding over her skin and began to babble together with exuberance and much volume. Ichigo closed his eyes to confront them and better hear what the fools had to say to him this time.

"My, my, the King has a foot fetish," his Hollow crackled merrily, his face multiplied by the reflections in all the mirrored skyscrapers of this world. "I always knew you were a pervert at heart."

Ichigo bristled as he stood in the center, poised as if ready to be attacked. "I do not have a fetish," he said hotly. "Rukia's been on her feet all day, taking care of all the Hollows while I tried to concentrate on my college entrance exams."

"You know, Ichigo, there is nothing wrong with human desire," Zangetsu remarked idly. The old man was studying his fingernails while floating upside down. "God knows that I've been waiting for you to act upon your more mature sexual impulses for quite a bit of time."

"I am not going to listen to you jerks. Haven't you done the math? Rukia's too damn old for me. It isn't right."

"I think it's you who hasn't done the math," the old man retorted. "Your soul is probably just as old as Rukia's. Have you forgotten the little thing called the reincarnation cycle? You weren't born in Soul Society, you know. Your soul isn't new; it's just been reconditioned. You could have had more human and spiritual lifetimes than her. You will never know; neither will she."

"Ergo, age doesn't matter anymore?" Ichigo spat out with disgust.

"That's right!" Zangetsu beamed. "Coupling with her is therefore acceptable." For an insane moment, Ichigo thought he was listening to his father.

The Hollow continued to howl in laughter. The white-haired freak was actually holding on to his sides. Ichigo couldn't believe that the Hollow was agreeing, for once, with Zangetsu. "Come on, now, boss," he wheedled, his black tongue making obscene motions with his tongue. "Just let me out for a few minutes and she won't even know what hit her. I'll be good, I promise. I'll make her beg for it. Then you can take over after the initial… awkwardness." He snickered. "I can't promise to be gentle but it will be memorable. She expects me to come out when you finally do her, anyway."

"No fucking way," Ichigo thundered. "Go away."

"Come now, Ichigo," Zangetsu reprimanded him. "Do you think this is easy for me? I'm the oldest part of your soul – and here I am, trapped in such an infantile vessel, such a poor excuse for manhood."

"Go away, both of you," Ichigo repeated. "I'm not going to listen to all your worn out arguments today."

Ichigo shoved them both into the corners of his mind, both of their hollering and banging on the doors of his consciousness. He shrugged and opened his eyes.

Rukia was awake, looking at him suspiciously. "And what do you think you are doing?" she queried. Her foot was resting on his lap, her wiggling toes dangerously near his crotch.

"Nothing, nothing!" Ichigo said defensively. "You just look like you needed… to relax. Dad used to massage Mom's feet when she was tired."

Rukia made a grumpy sound. "If that's the case… you need to work on the other one." Grudgingly, she placed her other foot in his hands and leaned back on the pillows expectantly. "I don't know what you're doing but it feels really nice."

Ichigo didn't put a fight with her unexpected demand for him to continue; he was the one who started this after all.

He began to blush as he massaged her aching muscles. Rukia had a strange, blissful expression on her face. In his naiveté, Ichigo didn't realize that his hands swept erotic sensations across such an unexpected body part.

His knuckles whitened as he worked upwards, reaching her ankle and lower leg. Rukia was watching him with infinite interest with her eyelids low. At this insane angle he could actually see her inner thighs and a peek at her lacy underwear.

"A little bit higher," Rukia said, leaning back. "You were right; this is great. I needed this. My legs are killing me."

_I hope, _Ichigo thought darkly, _that I didn't start something that I cannot finish. _

In the back of his head, he could hear two laughs – one sinister, one mature. They were making fun of him once more.

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_Reviews would be sweet. I don't demand them, though. I write for the pleasure of it. _


	25. Innuendos

Ichigo always has a cache of dirty comebacks on the tip of his tongue.

Spoilers: Quite a bit of lines were taken from chapters 201-202, 287-288 and 291. Most translations (highlighted in bold) come from Bleach Exile.

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**_25. Innuendos_

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Ichigo was flat on his back, trying to breathe properly. He was coughing up blood. The remnants of healing mucus crusted his exposed limbs. He was trying his best not to expire here in the bowels of hell. He needed something to get his mind off the current crisis. Rukia.

Rukia always made him smile inside. She was one of the pillars of his strength.

She also transformed him into a man-whore for words.

Ichigo relaxed for a moment and thought back, letting inconsequential, mad thoughts fuel his spirit. It wasn't the most intelligent thing to do, but he damn well needed a distraction from the physical pain.

So he concentrated on Rukia, the strange things that have been said in their mutual presence, and all the witty, lewd comebacks he wish he retorted.

He could have sworn he didn't have a dirty mind before he met Rukia. He would smack Keigo around if he suggested anything dishonorable about the girls, and he did not tolerate his father initiating weird roughhousing with his sisters.

So when did everything become a double entendre?

His ears wanted to bleed: everything being said tinged with the filthy. Ichigo got used to his neck perennially flushed with embarrassment. It became a natural state of being. Some days he was grateful that he had to kill so many Hollows. It drained his testosterone level and prevented him to walking around Karakura with a semi-erection all the time.

When did he get so turned on by words?

**_Don't look at me like that… so I like bunnies._**

That didn't help. Ichigo had a sudden mental image of Rukia in a Playboy Bunny outfit. He disciplined his features into a blank stare so she wouldn't guess what was on his mind.

(It didn't quite work. She bonked him on the head.)

Now, every time she whipped out Chappy he had to wipe the smirk off his face. It didn't help matters that Pyon was so… bouncy.

_When Pyon bounced, her small but well-formed breasts – Rukia's breasts really – bounced in ways no one thought possible. _

(Ichigo would do _anything _to have those breasts bounce against his face instead of his back.)

**_I thought today's youth were supposed to be oversexed. A kiss is like a handshake._**

Even worse. It wasn't even an innuendo; it was direct to the point. Ichigo bit his tongue in reply_: if it's all so casual to you, why haven't you kissed me? We should be making out all the time._

**_Where did you get that ridiculously oversized zanpakutou? _**

_Thanks, Renji. It boosts my self-confidence knowing that mine is bigger than yours. Not that I ever want to look at yours. _

(It might have a freaking baboon head. Besides, the honor of seeing Renji's zanpakutou was accorded to Byakuya alone.)

**_You were gone so long, Ichigo! I was lonely playing all by myself!_**

_Stay away from me, Keigo. I know exactly what kind of playing you do all by yourself. I hope you wash your hands regularly. I know I do. _

(Ichigo kicked him in the face to prevent Keigo's hands from touching him. There were limits to friendship.)

**_Shut up, don't talk and keep moving! _**

_Great, I bet she says that to all her lovers in bed._

(Rukia has the tone of an insatiable harridan.)

Ichigo remembered feeling ill to his stomach. As they flew about town with Rukia on his back, he scolded his thoughts: _she's not taking you to the nearest sex hotel, you horny pervert. It's got to be a Hollow. _

(It's always a Hollow. Rukia has Hollows on her brain.)

**_It's a Hollow._**

_Rukia, I haven't seen you in months. That weak freak can wait. Right now, I am only interested in the Hollow between your thighs that I want to pierce and Moon Fang with my big-ass zanpakutou. _

(Zangetsu will not be amused the next time he talks to Ichigo.)

**_That's the kind of man you have been in my heart, Ichigo. _**

_If you keep me in your heart, can I get into your pants?_

**_Oh come on, it's like you have a stick up your ass._**

_My dear, there's nothing else I'd allow up my ass except your little finger._

**_You should know by now that there's only one place I can get a good night's sleep._**

_I assure you, you won't be doing any sleeping if you spend another minute on my bed. _

**_Stand aside. You can't fight him when you're this tense. _**

_Rukia, I read a scientific study that proves sex is a great stress buster. Shall we leave this low-level Arrancar scum to find Yumichika and…? _

**_Seems like you're getting a big head, after all. _**

_You don't know how big my head can get._

**_If you weren't so stubborn, I wouldn't use force… Pyon!_**

_Damn it, if you were really Rukia I'd let you use all the force you wanted. You can mangle all my bones as long as you let me come inside you._

**_What are you doing, entangled like that?_**

_Be grateful it's your gigai on top of me and not the other way around. After seeing your sexy shikai and I just want to jump you, here on the pavement. _

**_Of course I'm fine, I wouldn't be here if I wasn't. _**

_I so want to roll in the gutter with you now. Take off your shihakusho. _

(Too bad Grimmjow had to show up and stab Rukia. Talk about spoiling the opportunity of the moment.)

**_Aren't we your nakama, Ichigo? _**

_Renji's my nakama. Rukia, you are something more infinitely dear, especially when I think of you dressed in that skimpy white robe, wearing a red dog collar. _

**_So it did make you understand after all… Good. I don't ever want to say that kind of thing again!_**

_One day, Rukia… you will say you love me. One day you will tell me you want me. When we make love for the first time, your naked, writhing body will be undulating under me. The day after, you will spill the beans and tell all your Shinigami girlfriends stuff like…_

**_His body's so thin, but his brute strength is incredible!_**

_Er, wait. Those words were already said, but not by my Rukia. _

Ichigo's eyes flickered open. He remembered in time where he was and who spoke those words, and why he was on his back on the cold floor.

The young man wanted to vomit. He just remembered. It was some stupid Espada with a lecherous leer on his face. It was the one who interrupted his fight with Grimmjow. What's-his-name. Nori? Noitora?

He wanted to kill the guy for looking at him that way.

Ichigo groaned and tried to get up. He was still bleeding. He just wanted to save his friends and go _home_.

His ass wasn't safe here in Hueco Mundo.


	26. Voids and Facades

Here's yet another take on why Rukia wants to see Ichigo's Hollow form, for reasons best kept to herself.

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**_26. Voids and Facades_

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Rukia was waiting for the day she could see his Hollow self.

She knew about it before she even went back to the world of the living. As both she and Byakuya recuperated from the aftermath of her failed execution, one night he had called her to his bedside.

She thought for a moment Byakuya was going to tell her more about her mysterious sister. But the look on his face said otherwise.

It was then, hesitantly, perhaps fearful of even the attempt at intimacy, her brother told her what had happened during his death match with Ichigo. Byakuya did not apologize for trying to kill him, and Rukia understood. That issue was buried between them; he had already redeemed his past actions tenfold.

No. Byakuya wanted to talk about something different.

"Something had taken over, something that drove relentlessly, that had more skill than his human self. That _thing_ was the one that almost killed me." Byakuya then added the four shattering words: "It wore a mask."

Her eyes met her brother's perceptive gaze and she faltered.

Rukia did not know why Byakuya felt the urgency to tell her. Perhaps it was his way of warning her that this young man was not what he appeared to be. Byakuya could not predict that his cautionary measure would be the very thing that would drive Rukia back into Ichigo's life.

She had to save him from himself. She knew she must. She had to do it immediately.

Ichigo had pushed his soul to regain Shinigami powers in order to save her – but by doing so, had unleashed the own evil lurking in the depths of his being. She could not let him be consumed by it. She had to help him gain mastery or lose him forever.

She could not lose the only person who helped shape her into the soul she was now – a Shinigami with an inkling of human compassion and understanding.

To lose him would create a void deeper than hell in her heart. It would be a gaping cavity that nothing would ever fill.

She knew he was ashamed that he had to turn to the Vaizards for additional training. Ichigo was too dense to understand that he had done exactly what she wanted – to find a way to quell his inner demon, and to harness its power for greater good. Rukia knew she would have to wait until he was ready to reveal everything to her. She didn't mind. She knew he must be rankled with self-doubt and the fear of rejection.

Ichigo was already raw inside, stripped of so many emotional defenses and burdened with so many responsibilities, she knew he needed a little breathing space to wholly accept the changes happening to him.

Ichigo was so young, after all. He didn't know that there was nothing about him she could ever reject.

The moment Ichigo would show her his Hollow self, and how he could control it, would be a day of triumph and pride for her. She will never fear the unknown in him. She will not flinch from the blackened eyes or the strange mask. Rukia knew behind the façade of a fiend, Ichigo would still be there.

Some day, he will realize that she had a secret Hollow of her own, and her mask was made from her own cold demeanor. Only his zanpakutou could seek her Hollow and cleanse it, and satisfy its base desires.


	27. Excerpts from Chad's Secret Diary

Chad doesn't say much but he sees everything. He really wishes he didn't.

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**_27. Excerpts from Chad's Secret Diary

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_January 24. Blue hooded shirt._ People assume that because I'm quiet, I'm also friggin' blind. Case in point: Kurosaki Ichigo. One of my best friends since the day I met him and yet he still thinks I don't have a clue. Ever since we got back from Hueco Mundo, Ichigo's been giving Rukia these lust-filled stares. Worse, Rukia's been staring right back. It's a showdown of the worst kind.

Nobody else seems to notice so I'm the only one suffering. Ishida's been oblivious since he started to bond with his pop with all that Last of the Quincy goop. Even Orihime doesn't seem so interested in Ichigo anymore; she's too busy tending to the all wounded innocent bystanders of Karakura who are too scared to drop by Isshin's clinic now, for reasons Tatsuki, Mizuiro, and Keigo have yet to fully explain.

Sometimes I wish I wasn't so observant.

I know getting snatched from the jaws of death can drive people's glands to go haywire, with the sudden urge to procreate, but Rukia and Ichigo? Spare me the excuses! They're _already_ death gods. They should be exempt from such base biological needs.

_1st weekend of February. Red floral shirt._ Do Shinigamis go through a mating season, like wild animals? It's something I should have asked Shunsui-sama when I had the chance. I want to know because Rukia's been acting strange. I mean, I guess it's normal for Ichigo's hormones to be in overdrive, he's sixteen and there's still a woman living in his household who spends half her time in his bedroom, and she is someone he obviously worships and adores. But for Rukia… damn. She doesn't have much of an excuse. I've know that girls get more interested in sex much later than guys, but Rukia's a little over the hill, right? Or maybe Shinigamis don't have a sexual peak until they meet the right person – like elves in Middle-earth or the Vulcan seven-year itch.

Still, why would a grown woman have anything to do with Ichigo? How they are carrying on, pretending to hate each other when it's actually a major case of flirtation. It's disturbing. It's illicit. It's illegal. It's... the plot of a _telenovela _Abuelo used to watch on TV every weeknight at 8pm.

_Wednesday. White Hawaiian shirt._ On the way to band practice tonight, I caught them smooching again in an alley after giving some poor soul a burial. I tried to ignore them in the corner of my eye as I passed by but the sight was just too unsettling. How can two sane people make out while surrounded by stench, drainpipes and rat droppings is beyond my understanding.

I guess the assumption there is that Ichigo and Rukia are both sane. Otherwise, it all makes perfect sense.

_February 28._ _Stripped gray shirt and purple jacket. _ Five minutes before the bell rang for afternoon classes, Rukia was still sitting on Ichigo's desk, teasing him about something. I saw his hand rest briefly on her thigh and inched up her skirt before she swatted it away and punched him in the face.

They are getting disgusting. It's not healthy. They need to admit they have a problem.

_March 9. Black sleeveless shirt. _The substitute coach had me and some other guys haul off all the winter sports equipment from the gym to the storage area behind the school this afternoon. I told Keigo and the others I would finish up, so I was the only one in for a surprise. I didn't know anyone was there, honest, so when I turned on the light I didn't really expect to see Rukia against the wall, with Ichigo's head buried in her chest. They were partly hidden between the shelves of spare tennis balls and the kendo club stuff.

I knew it could only be them. Ichigo really should dye his hair black if he wants to do things like this and not get identified.

They both froze and stopped breathing.

I dumped everything right away near the door, pretending I was oblivious to the awkward situation. In less than ten seconds I was out of there. I wasn't about to hang around to see if Rukia was fully naked or if Ichigo was livid about being interrupted.

I really don't want Ichigo loping my head off with Zangetsu. He's one of my best friends. I can land a punch to defend myself but I don't think I can block his bankai yet even with both arms.

Ichigo and Rukia just don't need to admit they have a problem: _they need to get a hotel room. _

Preferably somewhere far away from where I can see or hear them. Hell, somewhere so far away I don't have to deal with their horny reiatsus.

_March 15. Monday._ _Just my uniform, I didn't go out after school. Too much homework. _I think Ichigo and Rukia finally had sex over the weekend. They were both abnormally quiet in class today. Rukia kept fiddling with her collar, trying to shift it around so teeth marks on both sides of her nape weren't obvious. Needless to say she was unsuccessful. Ichigo was wearing his loosest pair of cargo pants and he was moving like a slow man in pain. The Principal happened to see him and scolded him for trying to get away with altering the school uniform to extremes.

I know they weren't injured chasing Hollows all weekend because I took care of three or four of them personally. Ishida also casually mentioned he scored a half-dozen from the balcony of his house. Orihime got one on her way to the mall. I also saw the two little kids from the Urahara Store tackle a couple of Hollows on their own.

If Rukia and Ichigo were into heavy physical activity for the past two days, I'm damned sure it wasn't on orders from Soul Society.

_March 21. Laundry day – so I'm wearing the stupid Quincy cross shirt under my brown hooded jacket._ The gig ended late. We got paid well for once aside from a couple of free beers on the house. I'm glad I finished my homework right after class. As I hurried home I saw that cute little walking lion plushie again. He was muttering to himself angrily about being thrown out the window and being the victim of his housemates' midnight proclivities. He kept moaning, "Oh, they are so noisy, they keep moaning, and they don't let me watch. Why can't I watch?"

The plushie was so intent with feeling sorry for himself he didn't see me until I was one step behind him. He ran but I gave chase. Despite my guitar strapped on my back, I managed to catch him this time! He seemed terrified of my size. I tried to comfort him and give him some food but he just stopped talking. I know he's playing dead so I won't be interested in him. But I'm not so easy to fool. He still blinks and when he thinks I'm not looking, he scratches his butt.

I'm really so happy I found him again I almost cried. I put a leash on my new cute pet. I don't think this one's a real soul, so it won't end up like that fiasco with the talking parrot.

Before falling asleep, I gave thanks to my Abuelo for sending me my new companion. My apartment is lonely without anyone else around. I know this is not the same as Ichigo having Rukia around all the time, but that's fine with me. I can do without a complicated relationship right now. Hell, I don't want to be a father before I'm twenty. Pets are enough for me.

I think I will name my new pet Kai.

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_Thanks for the reviews! Incidentally, if you just click on the last chapter during every update, you may have missed a vignette or two. I've been updating vignettes in groups of two's and three's. :) I just noticed that some chapters have twice the number of hits as some others, that's why I'm putting this little note up. Thanks again! _


	28. Deadly Sin

Rukia muses on an emotion she never wanted to feel before and why it led her to flee the person she loved best.

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_Love, romance… I think that stuff's boring. Feelings of attachment, affection, friendship… it's all boring. If eventually I must leave this place friendship and affection will only make it difficult. Friendship is really, really boring. _

_And then there's jealousy. – Rukia (Chapter 52, "Needless Emotions") VIZ translation_

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**_28. Deadly Sin

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Years from now, Rukia will tell Ichigo why she ran away without telling him; why she acted like a stupid teenager with only a tiny backpack, no money, and no concrete plans. She will tell him why her mind was seized with the silly notion that she needed to escape from an intolerable situation as soon as possible, without heeding the consequences. She will tell him why she fled from a shadowy threat straight into the arms of a greater peril.

Between Kon and Renji, their words had convinced Ichigo that she took off because she was trying to protect him from all danger and that she wanted to keep him safe and alive. That was true, but it wasn't the whole truth.

Years from now, when she is ready, when it didn't matter anymore, she will reveal everything.

Why it was painful to be so close to the loud domestic love of his family and yearn to be part of it.

Why it was difficult to associate with his friends, knowing that they belonged to him first and thought of her as a late addition, a fifth wheel.

Why it was mortifying to be dependent on him for everything, from the basic necessities of life to the subtle nuances of dealing with the living world.

Why it was humbling to see him wound a Grand Menos all by himself when in a moment of distraction she was almost killed by a Hollow.

Rukia wasn't sure if Ichigo could understand jealousy and why she constantly ached with it during those first two months. She had nothing of those things that he took for granted all his life: unconditional love and constant attention. She used to have her spiritual power and she had given it to him on loan, only to see it blown out of proportion and trigger his innate gifts that made her seem so paltry and inferior.

At the start of their tenuous working relationship, Ichigo had needed her for directions and training, and it was a fair deal. But that disappeared soon enough until the only advantage she had over him was her experience with kidou, her red glove, and her Soul Society phone. For those very reasons, she refused to teach him any kidou and denied him access to the last remaining symbols of her hold over him.

If they were not equal, they could not work in tandem. It was as simple as that.

Rukia didn't know if Ichigo even realized why she increasingly got snappish with him. He had put it down to moody femininity or too much familiarity. Yet in truth, it was a complex paradox for the older woman: she was in the position of a mentor who was seeing her student surpass her wildest expectations.

At first she was proud, then she was wary, afterwards she was frightened, for herself and for him. Rukia vacillated between applauding each brilliant performance and being disgusted with herself for not being able to achieve the same level of proficiency at her own first attempts, decades ago.

A part of the jealousy was purely professional. Yet from that insecurity sprang from the old fear of abandonment, that palpable fear she knew as a street urchin living in the slums. A fear that was reawakened, ironically, when her best friend distanced himself from her when she was adopted into a noble clan.

Her prodigy was leaving her behind. She had twisted and knotted the normal threads of his life. Rukia feared that soon Ichigo would have no use for her, and all she wanted from him at this point was to _feel_ needed.

It didn't help that Ichigo never seemed particularly grateful for the new world she had unlocked for him. He was always growling at her, and even if she had refused to be cowed sometimes it rattled her.

Rukia had set the key to her world in his hands, and yet it seemed that soon he was going to seek another teacher, a man like Urahara, who took too much an interest in him and would use him for his own devious ends.

It was just a matter of time Rukia would be left to her own devices to deal with her personal mess with Soul Society. The battle with Grand Fisher already alerted her to his need for independent action; the episode with his first Menos made it painfully clear that she was no longer essential to his survival – she could only watch by the sidelines, paralyzed by a binding spell, as he fought off a direct Cero blast and overcame its power.

It would have been all right if she hadn't realized along with the growing insecurity were the first stirrings of desire for his affection and his undivided attention. Rukia realized that she was selfish and she did not want to share him with anyone else. She found she could push the ill feelings away when she alone absorbed his interest – she did everything to keep it that way, for some time. She did everything and said anything to get on his nerves, to force him to acknowledge her presence in his life.

But time has a way of interfering, and situations change rapidly when emotions run high.

Rukia was running high with too much emotion – more emotion that she had ever felt in all her years of existence. She didn't know that it was all due to the gigai, but it hardly mattered as her confused thoughts tumbled ceaselessly in her head. Like prey surrounded by a pack of hungry predators, there were few options left: flee or die.

And so she fled.

Rukia was worried that he would never understand this, how it was to develop an inferiority complex. She felt sullied, as if she was no longer a Kuchiki but an impostor in borrowed plumes, a woman so undeserving of being with the young man she had helped transform into a god.

Rukia did not tell him any of this even when he demanded explanations from her after she was set free after Aizen's mutiny.

Rukia knew she was a coward not to tell him then. She was eaten inside with shame for falling prey to such petty and servile feelings. She did not tell him, even if Renji had already explained to her how grateful Ichigo was for changing his life and his fate.

She did not tell him the truth because of her fear of his ultimate rejection, even if all his actions already made it clear how essential she was to the fabric of his being.

Years from now, maybe she will tell Ichigo, when it no longer matters anymore. She will tell him once the emotional paper cuts have healed and the scar tissue faded. Perhaps that the time will come sooner than she expects, as Ichigo has begun to share even more of his life and his family with her, and better yet, even some of the secrets of his soul.

Rukia promised herself she would only admit to the pitfalls of her earliest emotions when Ichigo finally admits to her that there is nothing and no one in his life left for her to possibly envy, not even himself. She needed to hear Ichigo declare that all possibility of abandonment and separation from each other is over. She yearned to know deep in her heart that while he may now protect the world, he belonged to her alone.

She needed Ichigo to reassure her, once and for all, that in this world or the next, he would be the death of all her fears.

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_Author's Note: _

_Unfortunately, after I wrote and posted this vignette on lj, my friend Syneiam pointed out that the correct translation of the same text is as follows: "__When the time comes when I have to leave... I have to cut myself from them all. Love, companionship and... friendship... it's really... really... __**nothing but a saddening emotion.**__" (Soul Society Project translation)_

_If you wish to check with other fans who can read and speak Japanese, they will tell you the same thing. _

_Moral of the story: some fan translations are more accurate than the official English one. Wah!! Viz, give me my money back!_


	29. Byakuya: Denial and Acceptance

_Author's Note: _

_There were supposed to be only three more vignettes to this series, but I miscounted along the way and found I have written 31. In any case, the last three vignettes deal with themes of denial, time, and the evolution of emotion. These are my personal favorites, and I was saving them for last. _

_I will upload vignettes #30 and 31 some time next week. After that I will be taking a break from fan fiction because I'm focusing on my work for the National Novel Writing Month. Wish me luck. Don't forget, if you like this, leave me a review that will make me smile because Nii-sama's close to my heart. Thank you for reading. _

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The Kuchiki heir reveals his most secret thoughts about his sister and her future mate.

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**_29. Byakuya: Denial and Acceptance_**

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Byakuya knew he would have to let her go eventually.

After Hisana, things… they seemed inverted. Things – they burned like hell. He had everything a man was supposed to have in Soul Society: noble blood, money, and lethal prowess on the battlefield. He commanded both fear and respect.

He had everything but his beloved wife.

Byakuya felt it was a mistake, to love someone more than his own life and his own clan. It was a mistake to make a rash vow to her, as she lay dying, her spirit withering along with the fall of the cherry blossoms in the courtyard.

When he found Rukia at the Academy, his feelings of relief mingled with joy and loathing. He was adamant about fulfilling his vow despite the protests of his family. He overruled all their objections. Yet for himself, he quaked inside with fear. Rukia looked so very much like Hisana – but she wasn't. The expression in her eyes was bruised and less sweet. She moved with a cool grace, so unlike her older sister who spread charm around the house and warmth with her very fingertips.

Rukia's natural trepidation in his presence seemingly made their relationship doomed to failure. They could not even be friends while Rukia was intimidated. She was obviously going to be frightened of him for a very long time. Hisana – she was never frightened of him. She taught him how to laugh, even if there was much sorrow in her own short life. She taught him the meaning of unconditional love even if she only cared for him half as much as he did for her.

Byakuya could not bear to be so near a breathing reminder of his wife. Rukia became a painful keepsake, because their very differences brought back all the bittersweet memories of what he loved most in Hisana.

It was too soon to find her.

Still, Byakuya did everything to make Rukia feel part of the clan. He pulled all the strings he could to make her graduate from the Academy much too early. He made sure he got her into the right division of the Gotei 13, where she will be treated with kindness and where her life would not be put at unnecessary risk.

All these actions were necessary merely because they were part of the public face of his clan. If he did not do them, people would whisper that they didn't care enough for Rukia to use all the Kuchiki power in her favor. He was conscious of the subtle irony but he followed through just the same.

He wanted everything for Rukia the same way he wanted everything for Hisana. He just couldn't get close to her, for fear of his own sanity. He could not love anyone ever again, not even an adopted sibling. It was inevitable that Rukia would leave, just like her sister did. By pushing her away, Byakuya thought he was preparing for the day when she inevitably left the Kuchiki mansion. By keeping her at arm's length, it would not rankle his soul the same way and his duty would be fulfilled.

And then the day came that Rukia did not come home, she was missing, and he was oddly relieved. Everything he had predicted had come true. He did not miss her.

Then he was sent to the living world and found her existing in a gigai and a whole range of strangely human expressions on her face. Love, despair, anger and self-sacrifice – it all illuminated Rukia's being in those few moments. He saw his sister in a different light.

Then he met the boy who took her powers who was more important to her above everything, even her own life.

It was a betrayal that left ashes in Byakuya's mouth. Two months did his sister spend in this boy's company and she had already given him more than her soul.

Rukia had never given him more than a teaspoon of her real thoughts.

It was his fault, after all. Byakuya had spent forty years pushing Rukia away, fearing intimacy and the solace and understanding he might have received from her.

In hindsight, Byakuya wasn't jealous of the boy. He didn't do anything to Kurosaki Ichigo that was not deemed necessary and legal by the rules of Soul Society. If he had used excessive force, it was due to Byakuya's anger with himself. He had lashed out because of all his many stupid mistakes and miscalculations, for letting decades of his life go by in a state of perennial purgatory.

Shinigamis are not supposed to feel emotions. But Byakuya had been feeling grief for too long without recognizing exactly what it was.

After Aizen's betrayal – after he had redeemed himself and saved Rukia at the last moment – Byakuya knew what he had to do. He had to tell his sister the truth. Difficult as it was, he had to lower the drawbridge to the fortress of his soul. He had to let her close enough for confidence, so that they may share at least a little time together, truly as brother and sister.

Maybe he could be brave enough to let her cheer him up during his convalesce, to teach him smile again, and most importantly, to remind him of his beloved wife: all the things that he should have allowed since the beginning.

After that, he would have to let Rukia go where she was needed. It was not right to keep her tethered and yet unloved.

He knew he would have to let her go eventually.

Byakuya knew that Rukia would find her way back to that boy and perhaps share something as deep and satisfying as what he shared with Hisana. He knew that Kurosaki Ichigo, unpolished and raw as he was, had it in him to love Rukia so well that his soul would suffer without her. Rukia had changed that boy's substance and inner being, just as Hisana had changed the chemistry of his own heart.

The haughty streak in Byakuya refused to acknowledge he could share anything in common with Kurosaki Ichigo. His pride was hurt, thinking that he could relate to such a human lout. But deep down he knew they were alike in one aspect: they both loved women they should have never met, if not by the saucy tricks of fate.

Byakuya would never breathe this insight out loud to anyone, of course, most especially his noisome vice-captain. He would slash anyone into countless chunks before he'd let them know.

Belatedly, Byakuya recognized the clandestine power of these two sisters. Without a drop of noble blood, without even last names, they transformed the lives of men with powerful spirits. With infinite grace, these sisters had rendered them helpless in their presence and bewildered in the wake of their absence.

Rukia and Ichigo: it already happened once. He had no right to separate what chance had drawn together.

He would not stop them this time.

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_The first two lines of the vignette is a loose quote from one of my favorite Rivermaya songs, "Again." _


	30. Rukia: Pillow Book

_Thanks to Kasuchi and sping spring for their Bleach time-line of events (posted on lj) that I used as reference. Any further mistakes regarding dates are wholly mine. All highlighted quotes come from the official Viz translation; hopefully they got it all right this time. _

_Further thanks to wicked liz and adam epp for being eagle-eyed with the grammar slips and the typos. :)_

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In which Rukia's manga is not what it appears to be.

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**  
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**_30. Rukia: Pillow Book_

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**

Ever since Rukia returned to the living world, she began to freak out every time someone sneaked up behind her while she was reading. "That book _again_?" Yuzu once innocently asked her. "You've been reading it forever."

She would blithely smile and continue reading as if no interruption had happened. Rukia would rather die than anyone – especially Ichigo – Ichigo find out the real contents of "Sophia's Secret Treasures," a manga with such a lurid gothic cover it couldn't be real – _because it wasn't. _

"Sophia's Secret Treasures" was in fact the dummy front for a diary that Rukia carried with her everywhere. It was her pillow book and Ichigo would go ballistic if he found out its precious contents. It might prove an embarrassing document if it was discovered, not just for herself but also for him.

Thankfully he was off training with the Vaizards. Still, he might return home any moment now. Rukia could not risk leaving her pillow book lying around for him to find.

Rukia was a good Shinigami; she had put her investigative skills to good use. Her object of intense study: Kurosaki Ichigo. She was a secret collector of all his little gestures and phrases over the months. It was an amusing pastime for her to list down all the moments he let his true nature escape.

It was not his fault that his mask sometimes slipped. No one can hide behind such a tough persona forever.

She started keeping a diary in the middle of August, after her release from captivity. She had found herself bored in Soul Society, with nothing better to do but recuperate from her loss of spiritual power. She slowly re-trained as much as they allowed her, yet Captain Ukitake always shooed her away from the training grounds much too early. Rukia found herself doing nothing but watch the breeze wisp through the willows of the Kuchiki courtyard. Searching her recent memory for special moments in the living world, Rukia realized that she had too many of them. She decided to catalogue them before they were lost forever.

Matter-of-fact and concise, excerpts of her favorite entries follow below.

_Mid-afternoon._ Ichigo faced with a dilemma: should he protect his sister who is ill or help me fight a Hollow who was chasing Chad carrying a parakeet?

For me, the choice was obvious. But Ichigo still had a guilt-stricken look on his face as he protested: **_"I can't leave you!" _**

I told him what he needed to hear. I knew he would find me.

_3rd Saturday of May._ We spent a wasted day waiting for a dog or a cat to be hit by a car by the roadside. We still needed a vessel for the mod soul Urahara sold us. While crouching by the sidewalk, my bare knee grazed against Ichigo and would you believe it, the fool actually blushed. He's such a virgin.

_May 30. _I sent Ichigo out of the room again to fetch me some more tonkatsu sauce for my dinner. He came back with the entire bottle and some fruit for dessert. Who would have thought he was such a gentleman?

When I tried to thank him he merely growled and hit me with the orange.

_June 10._ Keigo teased me again about how much he would like to spend lunch alone with me, somewhere he could get to know me a lot better. Ichigo slammed a fist into his face, and then yet another one when Keigo complained that Ichigo just wanted me for himself but was just too chicken. After that Ichigo just stalked off, but his fist was still clenched and the back of his nape was a furious shade of red.

Interesting. I still wonder what chickens have to do with jealousy.

_June 17._ It was hot when the battle with Grand Fisher started, but started to rain as the afternoon dragged on. When I found him he said:**_"Hey, what took you so long? I already beat him."_**

Idiot. He told me not to interfere. Yet his grin was sardonic despite all the gashes. Blood was flowing down his brow and his cheek. **_"You thought I was serious?"_**

So he wanted me to help him? What of his pride? I didn't understand him at that time. When he finally fell into my arms, I cradled him in my lap and healed him. I used up all the little energy I had in my body and left none for myself.

_I couldn't let him die. I will not let him die. _

_Wednesday evening._ We stood in the crowd waiting for that Don Kanonji person. I told Ichigo to loosen up and relax when I realized his eyes traveled from my feet and focused on my bare legs. When did he start staring at my legs?

At the time, it occurred to me that if he was going to continue contemplating my lower limbs like that, I will be forced to wear longer skirts or those scandalous tight things they call jeans.

_July 16._ After fighting off the Grand Menos, Ichigo looked at me sitting on the grass. He smirked despite his massive injuries: Tessai did some instant healing before they packed up and vanished. For some reason I could not move even if Urahara had released his binding spell on me. My legs trembled as if I had no control over them.

"What are you doing, just sitting there?" he growled. "Are you waiting for an encore?"

I wanted to hit him but I was too relieved he recovered. I did something stupid: I held out my hands to him silently.

Ichigo was puzzled for a moment. Then he held out his own and pulled me to my feet. His hands were still warm from the fight.

"Let's go home," he said. His face lost its confident smirk and lapsed into exhaustion. "I will not take no for an answer."

It was only then he realized he was still holding my hands in his. He dropped them quickly, as if I had burned him and not the other way around.

_Midnight._ It was safe to tiptoe out of the room for a glass of water. When I returned, Ichigo had shifted in his sleep, throwing off his sheet. He was wearing pajamas but his muscles were well defined under the cotton. His face was peaceful as he dreamed. There was a crinkle of a smile that escaped the corner of his mouth. His bright hair was tousled and damp. I wished I could curl up into the crevice of his neck and nestle against his smooth cheek, and nibble so softly on his earlobe. It looked so tasty as if it was made of warm caramel.

_July 18._ I have to leave tonight. I made up my mind. After school I had stopped Ichigo and couldn't get any words out. I ended up looking at the ground like a fool. He had absolutely no idea what I was trying to say to him. We stood in front of the school entrance, too: such an awkward place for a public display of stupidity.

I needed to leave this boy before it was too late.

_The last entry is as follows:_

_September 7._ Captain Hitsugaya is on to me. I just know it. He had that quizzical look on his face when I told them to go ahead to the high school and look for Ichigo because I had something I had to check out first. As if looking for Ichigo wasn't the first order of the day!

I really just wanted to enter through the classroom window. I learned from Kon that the best entrances are the ones unexpected. The look on Ichigo's face was priceless. I knew his gaze lingered on my legs and thighs again, but when his eyes met mine I just wanted to dissolve. I wanted to yield and comfort him properly, tell him it wasn't his fault and that he could finally rest from all of his self-imposed responsibilities.

But I couldn't. I was sent him to help make him stronger and to push him even harder than before, even if it's unfair to him. I had to pretend I was unmoved by his conflicting emotions, which others only saw as cowardice. They were all watching me. I could only to do what they expected me to do.

The best thing about that moment was this: I was the only one to see the softness in his eyes, as if I had come to save him from his isolation and his free fall from grace.

Standing behind Ichigo, none of them saw his expression, only mine. It was worth earning the Captain's suspicion and Rangiku's teasing. I don't care if Renji reports my silly behavior to my brother. I don't regret the stunt at all: the look of relief on his face told me everything I need to know. The way he said my name was fond and gentle, as if he had just cupped my face with a feather-light caress. It confirmed everything I knew all along.

It's been a long time, Ichigo.

_His love was hiding in plain sight. _

It was more than enough for her.


	31. Ichigo: A Question of Time

On time, pride, and waiting for the right moment.

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_When I fall in love, I take my time, there's no need to hurry when I'm making up my mind._ – Jason Mraz

_You'd let your pride ruin everything, you stupid child!_ – Yoruichi

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**_31. Ichigo: A Question of Time_

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Kuchiki Byakuya said I was slow, even to fall.

It was true. I was slow to fall in love with his sister. At first she was an accident, a serendipitous means to save my family and myself. She appeared out of nowhere like a deus ex machina and helped me keep a vow I made after my mother died.

A day later, she was an imposition. I had unwittingly got her into trouble by sucking out all her power. She blackmailed me into doing her job until she recovered. She harassed, threatened, and even occasionally cajoled me into shape.

Somewhere along the way, she became a prerequisite to action. I couldn't move without her: something Ishida made a point of mockery. Yet Ishida was wrong. I didn't need her permission to act. I just preferred her to be around. It wasn't just because she wore the glove that slammed my soul out of my body, either. It was on a much deeper level.

Our working relationship was a well-oiled machine. She made the decisions and I implemented them. It was simple and effective. They say that two heads are better than one: so it was for us. We may have bickered but how many times did I actually get to veto her choice, or think of anything better on my own? Not many. I never admitted outright, at any given time, that she was usually right. I had my pride to save and besides – she would never let me hear the end of it. She was that type of crazy harridan. If she wouldn't budge an inch, I just had to push back all the same.

Later on, she became a necessity. She slowly ingrained herself into my life until she was like the very air I breathed. Her presence was constant and oddly soothing. I took her granted, like a normal person assumes that he has two hands and feet and the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

Her exquisite face was the first one I saw in the morning and the last before I went to sleep. Even in my dreams, my imagination could not escape the very things she introduced to me: Hollows, the mysterious Soul Society, konsos, modified souls.

Later on, I realized I began to fantasize about the physical aspects of her as well: the gloss of her hair, the brilliant amethyst hue of her eyes, the slim taper of her waist, the curves of her hips, the pristine skin of her shapely legs, the neat trim of her ankles. Yet I attempted to push these reminders of her femininity out of my mind.

How she managed to cross the threshold to the fortress of my heart is beyond me. Aloof Kurosaki Ichigo, the scourge of faculty and the terror of neighborhood thugs, is bested by a slip of a Shinigami. She crept in undetected and got under my guard.

I don't know why she did it. She really didn't need me, don't you see. She could have managed all the little things by herself. I knew she must have been a competent officer to receive a mission on her own. But she didn't. She always acted as if she was helpless without me. It started with a simple juice box and then things escalated from there.

She made it a point that she needed me to bring her meals to my room – our room. She needed help with most of her homework so I ended up studying the same lessons twice in one night. She made it clear she needed me to stand lookout while she took a bath in case my insane father got curious at the sound of running water in the middle of the night. She insisted on jumping on my back as we patrolled the streets at night, seeking out Hollows and lost souls.

More men than women fall in love at first sight. For me it took two months, tops.

Love at first sight of her, every morning, when she slid open her the closet door. Love at last sight of her, every night, when she disappeared from my view to sleep and perchance to dream. Did she ever dream of me?

Two months: then she became my obsession. When she suddenly disappeared from my life, I was lost. I could not look at anything without being haunted by her. Everything I saw or touched screamed her name: Rukia. Rukia. Rukia. I thought I was going to go out of my mind.

At first I thought it felt like I had lost my mother again, but no, the feeling was different. It would be like comparing chrysanthemums to cherry blossoms. With my mother, it was the grief of an abandoned child. With Rukia, the passion that fired within me was that of a man who just realized he was in love, and that his love was going to be sacrificed to satisfy the caprices of twisted justice.

I was slow to admit it to myself. I loathed the idea of being in love with anyone. I kept telling myself and everyone else it was a matter of honor; it was a matter of a debt to be repaid. It was an easy answer to give, and it was one reason many were happy to accept.

I risked dying to become a Shinigami once more. I trained hard and became strong in order to save her. I disrupted the very fabric of Soul Society just for her. If my mentors and my friends still clung to the tenuous belief it was only due to a debt of honor, then they all are bigger fools than me.

Deep within me, I already knew the real truth even if I could not let it break into the surface of my consciousness. Such a strong epiphany would distract me from the task at hand. But Zangetsu caught on faster than I did. He's the sharpest embodiment of my soul, after all. Zangetsu knew who stopped the rain from falling.

By the time I had snatched her from death, I hoped Rukia realized the truth too, even if I was too dumb and too proud to tell her with words. With our unique relationship, I'm not even sure if words are still needed to define what's already there.

I know I am still young and that humans measure time differently than Shinigamis do. I know I had all the time in the living world, and in the next, to tell Rukia everything I carry in my soul for her, if she actually needs to hear it. Someday. I need to be a braver man than I currently am to face up to such a confession.

Right now is too soon. But I know it will never be too late.

I am a young man with an enormous amount of foolish pride. I have more than just a Hollow mask -- I have a public persona. The scowling, ill-tempered brute that everyone is familiar with is the antithesis of who I really am. I have many secrets. Even my best friends don't know what I am really thinking. I do not like being stripped of my defenses, even by the woman I love unconditionally.

Byakuya said I was slow, even to fall. He did not know how right he was.

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_**-finis-

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_Reviews are highly appreciated. _

_Thank you for reading this to the very end. This is the last vignette in this series. _


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